TEHRAN (FNA)- An 8-year-old girl has died while in custody of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the Southern state of Texas days after a 17-year-old boy died in Florida while in custody of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
An 8-year-old girl died after suffering a "medical emergency" while in US Border Patrol custody in Texas on Wednesday, authorities said, NBC News reported.
The girl and her family were being held at a facility in the city of Harlingen, next to the Mexico border, Customs and Border Protection announced in a statement. No more details have been released about the girl's identity.
"Emergency Medical Services were called to the station and transported her to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead," the statement said, adding that the Office of Professional Responsibility would conduct an investigation as is standard protocol in the case of a death.
The agency noted it had contacted the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and the Harlingen Police Department about the incident.
Sgt. Larry Moore, a spokesman for the Harlingen Police Department, told The Associated Press he had no information about the death.
The death comes days after a 17-year-old unaccompanied migrant from Honduras died at a facility run by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement in Florida.
The Honduran government named him as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza and called for a full investigation and a criminal investigation if any wrongdoing is found.
On May 12, Title 42 was lifted — a COVID-19 pandemic-related restriction that put limits on immigration. Amid fears of a big influx of migrants, and after an initial surge, the numbers returned to normal.
Blas Nuñez-Neto, assistant secretary for border & immigration policy at the Department for Homeland Security, told reporters in a briefing Wednesday that the daily average of “ “encounters” with migrants seeking to cross the border since May 12 had fallen from more than 10,000 to just over 4,400, including less than 4,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"This represents a decrease of 56%, or less than half of the average encountered in the four days leading up to the title the lifting of Title 42 when the Border Patrol encountered an average of 10,100 individuals each day," he added.
In the four days after Title 42 was lifted, Border Patrol processed and released more than 6,000 migrants into the US without court dates or the ability to track them.
Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala are currently the most popular countries of origin for migrants attempting to cross the border, he stated.
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